


There's a violence in my heart

by just_liv



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Sad, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 23:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_liv/pseuds/just_liv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He takes her to the TARDIS and promises the universe. Anywhere in space and time. But the only thing she wants, he cannot give her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's a violence in my heart

**Author's Note:**

> First of all I shall - once again - offer tisziny my eternal gratitude! She not only helped me to translate this fic to English, but also made it so much better than the original version. Gurl, you're awesome. The title is from the song 'On hands and knees (My violent heart)'.
> 
> Secondly, this fic was conceived as a response to a challenge in which the theme was "death/ sad scene/ separation", therefore this is not - by all means - an angst free zone.

She faces the tiles walls that surround her, her face blank, her eyes unseeing. It's raining outside and there's a storm in her heart, but her eyes remain dry, she has no tears left to shed. The water in the bath has long gone cold, but River doesn't seem to mind. She doesn't feel the cold. She doesn't feel anything.

.::.

He is always talking about how intelligent she is, how brilliant. How she's going to be extraordinary. Sometimes he looks at her and for a moment it's like he's seeing someone that she isn't yet. His eyes so completely full of devotion that she dares not to mention his mistake. Sometimes she resents it, but mostly she's consumed in fear. Fear that she won't find herself, the woman his eyes always look for. She would never admit it out loud but she clings to every moment at his side as if it were her last. Because it might be. Because maybe one day he'll realise that she is not and will never be the woman he has been looking for.

.::.

He loves her desperately, in a way that time itself isn't able to contain. He loves everything that she will be, but also everything she is now. And the pieces of her that are no longer, that were lost over time. His past, her future yet to be. At this point she's so very young. There is a naivety in her eyes that he never thought he would find in River Song. A romanticism that has not been shattered by the blows of life. By his own hands. He looks at River and sees his failures, remembers all the times he broke her hearts, will break her hearts. Because he had been young and foolish, careless and suspicious. Harsh and even cruel. So he looks at River and tries to love her more, to love her at the very most, for the days when he hadn't loved her enough.

.::.

River knows she's not supposed to have dreams. Her life, her story, is already in itself a fantastic tale of adventure, suspense and mystery. Full of intrigue and running. A maze of timelines traveling in the wrong direction.  _Spoilers!_ And a love that is grandiose, epic. Hand in hand with inescapable tragedy. Faithful and remarkable. Irreparable. How naive she was, to hope for a happy ending.

When River wipes away the tears that insist on escaping her eyes she doesn't yet realise that she is in her own way to becoming the woman she has wanted to be for so very long. But at what cost?

.::.

He doesn't take her in his arms and cover her with kisses. Doesn't get lost in a whirlwind of nonsensical sentences. There isn't the slightest trace of a smile on his face. For longer than she can tolerate he barely moves, the silence weighing on both of them, leaving marks. When he finally speaks, his tone is devoid of any emotion. He asks if she is sure. The graveness in his voice ruining the moment. He looks at her, and in his eyes there is a sadness so great that for a moment she's breathless. She doesn't understand and all that she doesn't understand is more than she can bear right now. The smile leaves her lips, an intruder, and the voice that comes out of her is barely her own. Bafflingly shallow.

"Yes, three months."

She doesn't understand and he resents it. She doesn't realise that in their history these words were never written.

.::.

He dreams of laughter and a hand that is too small holding his own. He wakes up to find River asleep beside him, her head resting against his. He realises that his dream was hers, pouring into his subconscious through an involuntary telepathic contact. He buries his face in her curls and lays a kiss on her head. She corresponds in the midst of her sleep, snuggling close to his body. On his chest he feels a stabbing, throbbing pain. It's longing for something that cannot be. But he lived too much and knows too well that certain stories cannot be rewritten. She taught him that herself.

.::.

The Tardis receives a call in the middle of the night. She doesn't speak a word. Just the sound of her breathing can be heard across the line. He would recognize the least of her sighs. He arrives in less than three minutes and finds her so small, so lost. River doesn't move, sobbing quietly, resignedly. He sits beside her in bed and not without hesitation put a hand over hers. "I'm sorry, my love," he says earnestly, but doesn't have to look at her face to know that she doesn't believe him.

He takes her to the TARDIS and promises the universe. Anywhere in space and time. But the only thing she wants, he cannot give her.

Her tears turn into poison. All the pain, all the regrets corrodes her inside. She doesn't talk much these days. Polished words hurt more than the accusations. There's passion in hate but none left in River. No flame or fire. Indifference lives in her silence, what she daren't say aloud, and it kills him.

.::.

When she disappears it doesn't surprise him. For a long time now she is disappearing before his eyes, dissolving in tears, lost in the dark, drowning in sorrow. She runs from him so she can breathe. She runs from him in a desperate attempt to escape from her own pain. She runs from him, but cannot escape from herself.

She is River Song and was trained to not leave trace. He is the Doctor and nothing could stop him. He finds her in a dark alley in New York City in 1969. She is waiting for him.

"Hello, Sweetie." And he immediately recognizes the voice as hers.

His River.

She has been running and drinking to forget. Both gestures proved disappointingly ineffective. She doesn't send any message, but knows he will come. He always comes when she's falling. And she never fell so hard, so low. He arrives with his bowtie and a sadness that cannot be transcribed into words. She could kiss him. She could kill him. It's all a blur. It feels familiar. She greets him casually, having discovered, in the hard way, that the best way to contain her feelings is denial. But that's the Doctor, the man who knows her better than she knows herself. He reads in her face all that she dares not express in words.

"River," he mutters and the way he pronounces her name is full of regret. Of guilt. She closes her eyes and let herself dive into his voice. It's unnerving the realization that his absence is felt in her bones. Even after... Even after all. "What are you doing here?" He asks worried.

"Running." She responds, eyes still closed. "Isn't that what we do?"

He doesn't answer, only approaches her, silently and despite all her reservations River doesn't stop him. He is close enough to feel her breath. Close enough to feel the heat emanating from her body and the storm that is installing underneath her skin. When he moves to touch her, she hesitates. He sighs, wounded by her reaction, but doesn't back away. She looks up and suddenly he finds himself lost in her eyes.

"I," He begins to speak but she interrupts him.

"Oh, shut up."

Suddenly he finds himself lost in her lips. She tastes like alcohol and fury. Their teeth clash and all he can feel is the warmth of her tongue invading his mouth, her hands traveling through his body, pulling him closer, pulling him inside. She steals his breath away and when their lips come apart, he leans his forehead against hers, his hands clutching her face and all that she's feeling, pain, desire, anguish and an overwhelming grief takes hold of him in a wave of understanding. She kisses him again and this time he tastes salt. Tears. It doesn't take long until he realizes that this time the tears belong to him.

"I'm sorry." He says earnestly, not for the first time.

"I know." She whispers, so low that he almost cannot hear. He's only capable of feeling it.

.::.

She doesn't stay. She never stays these days. Always a new adventure, planets to save, people to meet. Part of him knows that it could not be different. They run, after all, in opposite directions.

.::.

She is getting dressed and he's not happy about it. He complains, says there was not enough time. She laughs and says that all the time in the world wouldn't be enough. He hides under the sheets and she rolls her eyes, an indulgent smile dancing on her lips. He's young now, so young. He doesn't see what she sees, doesn't understand. She lives for the days when she sees him . But each minute spent by his side is full of memories. Some wounds will never heal and she prefers to leave than stay and shed tears that she cannot contain or explain.

Spoilers.


End file.
